


Pop Fly Away Hair No More

by aika_max



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Facial Hair, Gen, Rituals, Team Bonding, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8413453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aika_max/pseuds/aika_max
Summary: After Ginny starts being accepted on the team, Mike develops a new pre-game ritual for beard care.  When they keep winning, eventually the rest of the team follows suit.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try writing in a new fandom, and spacecadet72 gave me a prompt. (Thanks!)  
> So, yes, this is my first Pitch story.

After the Padres start winning, when the team thinks it might be because of Ginny, they start looking for a pre-game ritual that will include her in it.They don’t do this consciously, but baseball players are so superstitious that legends and websites exist about the crazy stuff that they do.

Because he’s captain, Mike Lawson is the one who starts the team on their way.That, and the man pretends to vanity so huge he probably puts his face on a projector so he can sleep at night.He wanted to make his beard behave, and though it was never really in the mountain man or ZZ Top area of beards, it was manly and full.

Ginny, besides being a ball player with a great arm, is a young black woman with her own beauty rituals.She applies cocoa butter to her hair to keep the fly-away ends tamed during a game.She doesn’t want anything to distract her.The thoughts in her own head are often good enough to do that on their own.

Putting these two things together, one morning before a game, you have Mike banging at the wall near Ginny’s curtain.“Hey, Rook.I’m coming in.”

Ginny’s already dressed and putting the last touches on her hair.She turns to Mike with the product her hand and a questioning expression on her face.

He studies her and studies the cocoa butter in her hand.“Can I have some of that?”

“Why?” she asks.It’s not that she won’t share, but it’s odd.

“We’re one good-looking team, and more importantly,” he says as he strokes his beard, “we’re winning.Let’s keep it that way.”

Mike makes big motions to mime taking some of the cocoa butter from the tub in Ginny’s hand, and then he actually does it.He smooths it into his beard because it’s easy for him to work it in there.“Doesn’t smell bad.No wonder your hair’s always like that, Rook.”

After they win the game, Mike gives her a look pointing from her to his beard.The beard isn’t sentient, but other members of the team are.The next game one of the other players comes by for some cocoa butter at Ginny’s door.

She can see where this is going.Not that she minds exactly, but a baseball team with a common superstition is one awkward beast.“I’m not paying for everyone’s cocoa butter.I’m just the rookie.”

Ginny is ignored until Al steps in with a tub of cocoa butter that is Baker-blessed.He puts it right in the middle of the lockers in the clubhouse.Baker makes a point of rubbing some into the ends of her hair and then treating her glove with a few swipes for good measure.Mike and his impressive beard follow suit.Eventually other team members begin the tradition.

Amelia doesn’t understand this, but she doesn’t understand a lot of baseball.She understands the monster that is fame and did so even before Lady Gaga sang about it.Elliot gets it, though, when he says in his awkward off the cuff way that Ginny could get an endorsement deal.Amelia shuts that down quickly because it’s not prestigious enough.

The team inside the locker room doesn’t care, though.They’ve got a new ritual and it’s a whole lot better and easier to take than some of the other baseball odd rituals like wearing a golden thong, no sex on game day or not bathing.

“Damn, I’m gorgeous,” Mike declares before a game as he’s applying cocoa butter into his beard again and Ginny is treating her ends.“You know what that makes me?”

“Conceited?” she suggests.

“A winner, Baker.I’m a winner.”

He gives her a significant look.When they win yet another game, the opposing team gets Mike stroking his beard at them like he’s Freud with a catcher’s mitt.It’s eventually Mike who gets the cocoa butter endorsement deal because he embraces the absurdity of it all.


End file.
